


(we're) people the world forgot

by petrichor (findingkairos)



Series: a belief in the unbelievable [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Religion & Lore - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Existential Crisis, Gen, Misgendering, More characters to come, Nonbinary Character, Unreliable Narrator, Worldbuilding, more magic (than the Cosa Nostra is comfortable with) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 08:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13383678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/petrichor
Summary: Being nonbinary is one thing, but at least it prepared them somewhat for an existence as a reincarnated not-quite-human in worlds that should have stayed fictional.





	(we're) people the world forgot

What happens when you’re rejected from the afterlife? When you’re denied the existence Afterward that you’d so been looking forward to?

What happens when you wake up in a body that feels too small and a mind that feels too big and a world that is not your own?

(There was once a girl whose name is irrelevant, who realized a preference for different pronouns than ones that parents and society used, and then died.

In her place stands another: wiser, older, more weary and tired. But still living. Still moving.)

* * *

Death had thrown them into a world they remember vaguely from books and entertainment, and left them without a childhood here to realize what is similar and what is different. As a consequence they remain as they were when they woke up: wandering without setting down roots, tied to no man nor land.

And yet for the most part, they are human. They eat. They breathe. They bleed (and that had been an enjoyable evening, where the abyss had yawned and brought with it many thoughts that they had hoped would have been left behind in the Before).

Except whatever left them here granted them many things, amongst which is the fire that comes when called, the ability to be overlooked when desired, and the knowledge that whatever injury that should kill them is healed by the next day.

The day they realize this, they leave behind many things, amongst which is their name.

* * *

They see many things as they travel: the rise and fall of countries, the movement of glaciers, the rising of the sun on mountaintops the world over. They slip onto airplanes that have seats leftover, taking whatever is available and are never stopped by anyone.

And everywhere they go, they are called something different.

Those of the Northern Americas call them _Silap Innua_. Those who believe in reincarnation call them _Yaksha_. Those of the Nordic lands call them _Vættir._

It would have been funny, if they haven’t been cold for years. If they didn’t call solitude a friend. If trying to throw themselves into the sky didn’t mean that they would wake up sore and tired and still so very lonely.

* * *

They lose track of the days.

(They walk the fine line between lawful and lawless, dip their hands in clear mountain water the same way they dip them into blood. They carry no weapons but need none, too familiar with their own body after two lifetimes of learning it, and watch the world turn as a bystander.

There are ashes in their mouth and an emptiness somewhere beneath their ribs, but water has not drowned them and a lack of air has not killed them. And even trying to reach for the eternal darkness and falling short again and again becomes tiring, after a while, no matter the promises of the Folk of the Lands.)

They travel from the North Americas to Europe to the frigid glaciers of Greenland, then back to Asia and its Southeast corners filled with spices and monsoons, winding their way back up through Africa into India and then the Middle East.

In comparison, the Mediterranean and its surrounding countries is, perhaps, an afterthought. But they meet the most interesting of people there, on both sides of the law.

And everywhere they go, there is someone dogging their steps, whether they be from one country - or more likely, their underground criminal society - or another.

 _Make some colorful fire once_ , they muse with no small amount of chagrin, _and suddenly everyone wants you either on their side or dead._

* * *

And though the days run together, the only things setting them apart the people and the cities and the wild lands, sometimes a particular person makes an impression on them.

On the outskirts of Naples, the man that has been following them finally has the audacity to ambush them, and they would have made their own way out of it save for the sudden help an Italian native gives, his gunwork never ruining the sharp, clean line of his suit.

“Thank you,” they say when it’s over, wiping the blood from their lips.

The man raises an eyebrow at them, glancing meaningfully at the miniature massacre that stains red the crevices between the cobblestones of the road. “Whatever did you do to anger them, _signorina_?”

No matter the place or time, the feminine form of address still sets their teeth on edge; but it's not the worst thing they have been called, and explaining gender and pronouns and how the way that being addressed the way their old self had been sets their teeth on edge is a trial and a half for a virtual stranger, so they let it pass without comment.

“Existed, apparently,” they answer instead. They wipe the blood off their hands on their jeans and pick up their small bag from the side of the street they’d tossed it to.

When they straighten, the man looks as if he is contemplating something.

“My name is Rinaldo,” he says finally. He tucks his pistol away and offers them a hand to shake, asking, “Yours?”

There is the flare of something beneath their collarbone, warm and soothing, when they take the hand, and by the startle in his eyes Rinaldo feels the same.

They smile, then, and keep their teeth tucked away. “You may call me whatever you wish.”

Rinaldo looks at them, dubious, but they ignore that, accustomed as they are to such glances and lack of understanding.

(What is the meaning of a name? What is the point of one, when no one will use it? Even death could not - can not - kill them; who will remember? Who will be left to remember?)

“ _Sì, Bella,_ ” he says, apparently a flirt. They give him a smile for that, as friendly as they can make it though it surely must be strained at the edges.

But Rinaldo must sense something, because he stills nonetheless and gives them this time a look full of curiosity, edged in something like apprehension. 

No matter; they walk with him to a sunny courtyard in Naples, and indicate their intentions with a nod of the head and a half-hearted smile. Rinaldo tilts his fedora at them, eyes shadowed and line of the lips tense, and then they’re gone in a flash of that peculiar fire.

* * *

And that should have been, perhaps, the end of it. 

But the man keeps reappearing, every time they visit Italy and sometimes even outside of it. When they are on a gondola floating through the canals of Venice, they can sense his eyes on them from a sniper’s position. When they are seated at a café in France he tucks himself into the seat across from them without so much as a by-your-leave and engages them in a conversation about, of all things, growing medicinal plants.

Curious, they muse, and think nothing more of it.

(A mistake.)

“You mean you truly don’t know?” Rinaldo asks eventually, scandalized. He tilts the brim of his fedora back, so that they can see his eyes in the low French sun. “A strong Flame user like you in Italy, I thought, _mademoiselle_ , you would know.”

“Know what?”

“That you are a delight,” he purrs, unable to resist an opportunity to flirt. They raise an eyebrow at him, though, and he immediately sobers.

(How is it that so-called _Rinaldo_ knows how to read them so well? They cannot remember when this happened, which is concerning.)

“Being by yourself… it is dangerous. Not only because of the more mundane threats,” he hurriedly adds, “but because there are people who would like you to join them, and would use less than pleasant methods to do so.”

“I know of the latter,” they say, “but what about me makes me so interesting?”

Rinaldo stills, then, startled again. “You truly do not know,” he murmurs, and they are tempted to call it solemn.

Then Rinaldo opens his right hand palm up on the table between them, and sets the air above it on fire.

“You have the Flames of the Sky, _mademoiselle_ ,” he says.

* * *

This, they reflect, is a world that should have stayed fictional.

At Rinaldo’s encouragement, they cup their hands and reach for that fire that warmed their bones when they first woke up in this life, that certainty that if death will not take them, then at least nothing else will. That they will not be tied down to no king nor country, that they will be free to do as they please under the cover of anonymity, that when they inevitably spin out of control in a glorious show of self-destruction they will at least take no one else undeserving with them.

The space between their hands light up an orange edged in soft indigo.

They always knew on some level that this was coming; that they will be hunted down and either forcibly recruited or killed for having access to the Italian mafia’s signature form of mundane magic. But the unmasked astonishment in Rinaldo’s eyes makes them wonder -

No. Wondering will get them nowhere; in the end, they must move on, both from countries and from people.

They press their palms together, extinguishing the Flames. “Are you satisfied?”

Rinaldo blinks, slowly, returning his attention to them and to their surroundings, as if he had forgotten there existed something else other than the display of Dying Will. “I am, _mademoiselle_ ,” he whispers. If there was astonishment before, there is awe in his tone now. “Thank you.”

(Do Sky Flame users truly number so few here, that a mere demonstration would shake him so?)

Uncomfortable, they murmur back, “You are welcome,” and take another sip of their coffee. It is, like so many other things in this country, exquisite.

Rinaldo takes the time that they use to sip at their drink to pull himself together. When he is done, they do not think anyone could tell apart his previous charming, charismatic self from the man who sits before them; certainly not anyone save someone who has seen him stare at a small orange-edged-indigo flame as if it held the answers to all the questions he could ever ask.

“What will you do now?” he asks. His voice is steady again, with no trace of his earlier heightened emotion.

They shrug, tapping the fingers of their free hand on the table in thought. “Keep touring France,” they muse, eyes on the Eiffel Tower and the historic city beyond. “After that, perhaps travel to Spain. I’ve heard their Alhambra is particularly impressive.”

Rinaldo opens his mouth - perhaps to say something - before he closes it. He pulls down the brim of his fedora to shade his eyes, though they can see from the angle of his head that his gaze is on his own cup of espresso, still lightly steaming. “I have a contract to fulfill,” he starts reluctantly, as if it is the last thing he wishes to say. “But, after that-”

They cannot say this for him. They wait instead, patient, winding their awareness through the café they are sitting at to ensure they remain undisturbed.

The man across from them clears his throat once, twice. “Would you be amenable to my joining you?”

They know who Rinaldo is. His unsettling resemblance to a fictional man they’d known in a fictional universe leaves no doubts as to his identity. But here, now, when the threat of the balance of the world is surely far away and they themselves are an impossibility given form?

They shrug. “I would be,” they say, and pretend not to notice the slowly unfurling joy from Rinaldo.

* * *

As easily as Rinaldo flirts, he is the consummate gentleman. He offers to carry their bags for them and tucks himself against their side like close friends would each other, and always speaks to them with the utmost respect. He charms and flirts and yet stops as soon as they give him a look or stay silent just long enough to express their displeasure or uneasiness.

And yet, through all of it, they cannot parse out why the man would wish to follow them. Surely it is not because they are interesting; there must be a hundred and one people out there in the Italian underworld that can access Sky Flames. It cannot be that he believes them to be a woman worth following, either, because they have done their utmost best to appear androgynous or at the very least like a man in all of their travels.

But Rinaldo still follows, and believes their hesitance to give a name to be a game. He calls them _Arabella_ and _Sonia_ and _Giada_ , tries _Aellô_ and _Mathilde_ and _Rhonwen_. 

To his credit, when the feminine names do not fit he tries others: _Anatonio_ and _Marcello_ and _Corbin_.

None of them are used more than once or twice, of course. Still, the fact that Rinaldo tries is more than what they are used to. He is persistent, and good-humored, and unceasingly kind about it all; and it warms something burrowed deep inside their ribcage, that he would try like this. 

And when he finds the one that they agree to, that they tell him is not offensive, Rinaldo beams at them as if they’d handed him the sun.

* * *

Eventually, all secrets must out. 

Rinaldo says, when his eyes are shaded by his fedora, that his name Renato. They find this appropriate and grimly humorous, but do not tell him so; instead, says, “It is nice to meet you, Renato.”

And so they only smile widely with teeth when Renato introduces them to his shrewd-eyed and suspicious colleagues as “My _Arabella_ , Vili.”

**Author's Note:**

> In Norse mythology, [Vili and Vé](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vili_and_V%C3%A9) are the brothers of Odin, and it is said that they made the world. In Old Norse, vili means “Will.”
> 
> "Bella" is a [common thing to call a woman you're flirting with](https://www.quora.com/Do-Italian-men-really-flirt-all-the-time) in Italy.
> 
> The author is a nonbinary person; and, of course, my and Vili's experiences are not representative of the experiences of all nonbinary people. Some prefer not to use they/them pronouns, for example, while others are hesitant to use xe/xir, etc.
> 
>  _(we're) people the world forgot_ is an exercise in the consequences of immortality, writing neurodivergent characters, working with unreliable narrators, and worldbuilding. Hopefully we'll all get to the end someday.


End file.
